Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical

El Greco, View of Toledo, 1598

Baroque

Baroque is a period of artistic style that started around 1600 in Rome, Italy, and spread throughout the majority of Europe.
The word baroque describes something that is elaborate and highly detailed.
The popularity of the Baroque style was encouraged by the Catholic Church, which had decided at the Council of Trent that the arts should communicate religious themes and direct emotional involvement in response to the Protestant Reformation . (Reformation: The religious movement initiated by Martin Luther in the 16th century to reform the Roman Catholic Church.)
The Baroque style is characterized by exaggerated motion and clear detail used to produce drama, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture , painting, architecture, literature, dance, and music.
Use of dramatic lighting, movement, and grandeur are 3 of the characteristics of Baroque art.
The chiaroscuro technique refers to the interplay between light and dark that was often used in Baroque paintings of dimly lit scenes to produce a very high-contrast, dramatic atmosphere.
Famous painters of the Baroque era include Rubens, Caravaggio, and Rembrandt. In music, the Baroque style makes up a large part of the classical canon, such as Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi.

Caravaggio: The Calling of St Matthew (1599-1600)

Rococo, style in interior design, the decorative arts, painting, architecture, and sculpture that originated in Paris in the early 18th century but was soon adopted throughout France and later in other countries, principally Germany and Austria.
It is characterized by lightness, elegance, and an exuberant use of curving natural forms in ornamentation. The word Rococo is derived from the French word rocaille, which denoted the shell-covered rock work that was used to decorate artificial grottoes.
Asymmetrical design was the rule. Light pastels, ivory white, and gold were the predominant colours, and Rococo decorators frequently used mirrors to enhance the sense of open space.

Jean-Antoine Watteau: The Embarkation for Cythera (1717)

Neoclassicism arose as artists and architects infused their work with past Greco-Roman ideals.
A return to the study of science, history, mathematics, and anatomical correctness abounded, replacing the Rococo vanity culture and court-painting climate that preceded.
Neoclassical art arose in opposition to the overly decorative and gaudy styles of Rococo and Baroque that were infusing society with a vanity art culture based on personal conceits and whimsy. It brought about a general revival in classical thought that mirrored what was going on in political and social arenas of the time.
Neoclassical architecture was based on the principles of simplicity, symmetry, and mathematics, which were seen as virtues of the arts in Ancient Greece and Rome.
Neoclassical painting is characterized by the use of straight lines, a smooth paint surface, the depiction of light, a minimal use of color, and the clear, crisp definition of forms. The works of Jacques-Louis David are usually hailed as the epitome of Neoclassical painting.

Jacques-Germain Soufflot and Jean-Baptiste Rondelet: Le Panthéon (1755-9

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